Thursday, December 31, 2009

2am and some rodent is having a party in the bedroom walls. He is not new to us. he moved in maybe a year or 2 ago. This is an extremely old house, full of crevices allowing mice or squirrels or whatever in and out, I guess. There was, for example, the HUGE snake skin in the basement when we moved in. I later met the milk snake that April and used a rake to carry him off to a swampy and distant area....ANYWAY, so this mouse. Or whatever it is. Usually is seems to move around but is normally quiet. Last night I think it got stuck somewhere. I don't care, I hate it. I hope it doesn't die in the wall by the bed and stink. I hope Spike tears it to pieces. See pic below: Spike is working on it!Also, you saw a small yellow teapot 2 days ago, and its bigger brother just came outta the kiln, YAY!And here's the Cycle S!uts from Hell and I WISH YOU WERE A BEER. Omigosh, HEAVY METAL, BABES and BEERS....

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

I was watching my pals like Miri use this black and red to make extra spiffy looking glaze combos and I was like "why havn't I tried that yet?" and this experimental mug just came outta the kiln and then late this afternoon Georges was over again and we got out the cheap red wine and made some sticky rice and peanut sauce and the rest YUM.

The wife is on vacation, her complicated projects abound. I try to hide, not always succeeding. Last week she tried to fix one of the borken stove burners and it WORKED. She and Spike and Georges got the parts and fixed another burner today.....Georges was richly rewarded.

I am hiding at the moment. The wife is downstairs FIXING something and there was a loud crash and a "I MIGHT NEED YOUR HELP IN A MOMENT" so it might be a good time to, um, feign deafness and jump in the shower.This teapot below is small, maybe 2 cups at most, and was going to be a pug teapot (as I said below in the puglets post) but I went frog at the last minute and it looks semi-terrific or even simply terrific.btw---somebody tried to post some filthy, and I mean FILTHY auto-spam in my comments, so I guess I am going to continue reviewing comments before they post---sorry about that :)(shoot, now she has power tools out, I better run....)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

(pug by Gary Rith)I don't have a pug but Becky Jo's family does. Becky Jo asked for a pug mama and pug baby teapot and I had to try to make a practice pug first of all. I was gonna put this on a small teapot but I liked it so much I decided to keep it. As a model :)

I was dreaming of when we worked at a boarding school and it was just before graduation and I caught a student I liked coming out of the girls' dorm at 5 am and I knew he wouldn't graduate if I turned him in and....well, then I woke. Should I have just warned him to be good for 3 more days or turned him in and ruined his life? Now that I am awake I think I would have told him to make sure he was extra good until graduation and try to make sure he understood that and leave him alone. My last year teaching at a boarding school I was only a hardass with the kids who were annoying and I was permissive with the kids I liked, which is why kids hate school and teachers isn't it?This is a small teapot, and its much bigger yellow brother was glaze fired yesterday and is cooling now.(teapot by Gary Rith)

I remember listening to this tune and you have to admit, its a good reminder of how lucky we are....

Monday, December 28, 2009

I wish. Typically terrible December weather here, which, atypically, we have seen little of lately. I mean, yesterday was beautiful. Now the long slow slog through winter, not even Christmas to look forward to....

The good: I was super excited Christmas morning when these cups came out of the kiln. Twas definately cause for celebration! I want to make many more like this in the coming weeks.The bad: I have had a lot of comment spam so I am going to be reviewing comments before they are published. Sorry! I hate those letter captchas HATE THEM and so I figure reviewing comments is the best I can do at the moment.The ugly: Somewhere after 2am I had the most horrible dream about my grandfather, a lowdown dirty and horrible man who should have spent his adult life behind bars, (but did not). In the dream it is his last day and night of life and I am warned by the doctors that it is the END and I am on my way to say goodbye and there is some kind of terrible hospital scene and he passes away without any family there and so we are left both hating him and wishing we could have said goodbye and good riddance, while simultaneously feeling guilty about those genuine feelings. Which is pretty much what happened.This blog and my life are usually the good ship lollypop, and that is a real picture of me--floating along with a smile having fun, but you know, sometimes reality intrudes, like in a nightmare. Lets just say I have been up since 3. It was intense.(piggy cups by Gary Rith)

Sunday, December 27, 2009

My best pals Terri Anne and Chris live across the street and he is an artist and she an art historian and you know, they have a fridge full of wine and beers and invited us over and well, we gossiped about YOU as you might imagine, we really did and you start to wonder why everybody is so nice to us but maybe we are somewhat entertaining and amusing guests :)

So my pal David sees the blog and me grousing on Facebook and he is like"my wife is in Buffalo, let me rescue you from your guests for awhile" and you KNOW I grabbed the car keys for a little bachelor time with David.We went to the most ideal and pretty general store you have ever seen in your life, the Brookton Market, an old general store turned yuppie coffee shop. And store. (you have GOT to click that link and look at this place, it is SO NICE)After a bit of snacking and guy gossip I am like "I am somewhat refreshed" and David is like"back to the trenches?" and off I go, to prepare lunch for the visiting hordes. Then do the dishes. And then go back into the studio to hide.....

I finally figured out which guest is snoring. The one who has been on this cot. (I would be pretty loud too if I had to sleep on this cot :) She is a total favorite with the cats as you can see, whereas the other guest is NOT a pet person. Nor does the other guest snore.Feels like I am feeding an army at every mealtime. There are families who have hungry kids at every meal, I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY DO IT. And the mountains of dishes. I tell the wife to entertain guests and I do the cooking and cleaning and hiding.Last night? Chick pea pancake with onion, spicy curry soup and chickpea curry dal. Forking tasty!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

the visiting SIl had Justin Timberlake CD on her wish list and we were like, morally opposed to giving anybody Justin Timberlake. But we gave her a Borders gift card, figuring if she wants to waste her time on....well, anyway, she is here and she took the card to Borders today and got a Justin Timberlake CD. Which is her right, as an American, to buy crappy music, but who am I to judge? At dinner then she wants to listen to it and we suffer through some of it and she reminds me he is the genius behind that holiday favorite D##K in a box and I am like OH HO! Totally rethinking my stance against the boy....

You hear potters say sometimes "opening a finished glaze fired kiln is like CHRISTMAS MORNING". That is because pottery is a bit of a guessing game and what you hope for is a kiln load of beautiful pieces you made and fired, just as you hope for chocolate and stuffed beagles and DVDs in your stocking Christmas morning, not coal.On Christmas Eve I fired my baby kiln which holds a few small pieces and woke up yesterday on Christmas morning to a first: opening the kiln to gorgeous items was like Christmas morning, on Christmas morning.In other news, working backwards now, I have a house full of relatives sleeping all over our place. Penny still wanted to get up at 5 something today, and she tried to get our guests up at 5 something today too. Let's just say that although I am not yet sure WHO, one of you SNORES. I am not gonna say anything about fish and guests stinking after 3 days because I am having fun, but that snoring sh!t has GOT TO STOP.One guest arrived yesterday afternoon and one was already here, but we waited and opened presents after dinner. Seems somewhat saintly to wait all day to open presents, and then we all had to play high stakes cards with pocket change and some of the good whiskey I got in my stocking, and AS USUAL my wife cleared the table and filled her pockets.....

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Me and Missus Tastycakes got married 17 years ago today. Through thick and thin, here we are. I am so totally lucky, I mean, the lady is amazing (see HOME ELECTRONICS FOR DUMMIES below). I am sorta crowd phobic and we sorta eloped, but here we are with Episcopal proest Father Ted on that day...

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Thursday marks our 17th wedding anniversary, yep, Christmas Eve. And today is the Eve of the Eve so of course we went out to the Chapterhouse for a wee beer and some popcorn and my SIL Emily is in town (and plays excellent defense on foosball) and Nicki and Steve and Steve and Judy and Kari and Derek came along too....I had found, and I swear I am not making this up, an INDUSTRIAL sharpie on the ground and so you KNOW we had to mark up the table with a little anniversary grafitti and then everybody else got into it on the table...

The wife wears the pants in this family. She's the one with the toolbox, I'm the one making the dinner and cleaning the cat box. I'm good at that.SO for the last year or so only 2 out of 4 burners have worked on the stove. I am resourceful. 2 is better than zero, so it has not bothered me. The wife feels differently. She likes to fix sh!t. I don't like to like to fix things, I like to ignore broken things, make pigs, drink coffee, try another variation on pizza recipes, like that.SO she tells me we are going down to the electric parts store and I drive her there and turn on the radio."You aren't coming in?""Me? I don't know anything about burners. I'm gonna sit here and visualize whirled peas"So my little wife goes into the warehouse and comes back with all these gizmos.Later I am sitting here after dinner, you know, doing this. Watching Flight of the Conchords clips and stuff. She is rattling around downstairs."I gotta turn off the breaker for the stove""Crapola, can't you see I'm busy!" but the basement is part of my studio so I have to go to the fuse box for her, and then I am drawn in and you want to say"DANGER WILL ROBINSON!" because I HATE household projects.But I am drawn into assisting the courageous little woman, and after things are torn apart and reassembled correctly, there are HIGH FIVES all around. Until this morning when I turn on the fixed burners, which work, to an extent."Honey, the burner you fixed works, but only gets, um, warm, not hot at all" (should have kept my mouth SHUT)"OK" she sez grabbing the toolbox "let.s....(etcetcetc)" and I am like"IT'S FIVE AM! Can't we wait until we have had some coffee?".I guess this story will be continued, although the irony of course is that I do all the cooking and she insists we fix this thing....**update at 6 something, after some coffees: small adjustments made, burner works perfectly :) (this woman kicks AZZ) AND I gave her a scratch ticket and she won TEN DOLLARS. Wow.In other news, you can see this rather curious experimental cup I am excited about plus the rather nifty patterned bowl experiment....

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

So as I say I am making many small teapots to try out ideas and this is not a new idea for me, but I was talking with Pauline about elephants and I am like 'no, wait for the full monty', meaning, of course, the elephant that IS a teapot....And Becky Jo was asking me about my fancy lighting set up, and actually tis NOT fancy at all.....(elephant teapots by Gary Rith)Goodness, remember this tune from the early 80s? I remember in those pre-IPOD days trying to find it on the radio and calling in requests....